Transformative Leadership: Cultivating Effective Habits for Team Engagement

Unlock the secrets to cultivating powerful leadership habits that will transform your team dynamics! Join me, Rhonda Delaney, as we navigate the art of showing genuine interest in your team members, inspired by the principles of "Atomic Habits" by James Clear. Learn how to make these interactions second nature with practical tools like wooden tiles or beads, serving as visual cues to help you track and amplify your positive behavior. This episode is packed with actionable insights designed to take your leadership skills to the next level, ensuring you nurture a thriving and engaged team environment.

Imagine a workplace where your every interaction leaves your team feeling valued and motivated. Discover how making your leadership habits both obvious and attractive can yield positive responses and create a ripple effect of engagement and productivity. We'll explore inventive, easy-to-implement strategies to help you seamlessly integrate these practices into your daily routine, making them a natural extension of who you are as a leader. Whether you're just starting your leadership journey or looking to refine your skills, this episode promises to equip you with the tools you need to inspire and connect with your team like never before. Grab your pen and paper, and get ready to grow into the leader you've always aspired to be.

JOIN THE RAVING FANS SOCIETY HERE apple

JOIN THE RAVING FANS SOCIETY HERE google

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Well, hey there, welcome to the People Gardener podcast. I'm Rhonda Delaney, your host, also known as the People Gardener, thrilled to put this podcast together to help small business owners, new business owners, frustrated business owners and aspiring leaders, whether they're inside business or outside. Each week, we bring you some actionable steps so that you can actually improve your skill as a leader. That's what we're about. We're here to help you become a better leader by giving you access to lots of different perspectives. By giving you access to lots of different perspectives. The guests are varied. We're thrilled to have them. Get out your pen, get out your paper and be ready to learn Every single episode. You're going to be able to take something away that you can implement. Are you ready? Let's get to work. Well, hey there. Welcome back to the People Gardener podcast. Happy to have you here this week. And, wow, I don't know what's been happening in your part of the world, but we have had some wild, wild weather. But, hey, the fall in the Pacific Northwest rain is definitely one of the things that happen. Habits that's what's been on my mind. I've been talking the last number of weeks about the Raving Fan Society and figuring out and helping you figure out. What can you be doing and how can you be doing it? And this week I thought you know, let's talk about getting a habit ingrained so that it becomes a habit Second nature. This is just how I operate. This is what I do and it works and it flows.

Speaker 1: 1:58

One of the premier voices out there in the world is James Clear and his book Atomic Habits. He has a section in there it's the four laws of behavior change, and this kind of plays into my thinking of the creating this habit that is going to stick. And what the habit is for me that I'm encouraging you in is being interested in your people, interacting with them as human beings and working to serve them each day. So the first law of his is make it obvious. So he suggests designing your environment to make your desired habits clear and visible. To make your desired habits clear and visible. How do you do that when what you're trying to accomplish is an external action to somebody else? So I got thinking.

Speaker 1: 2:55

Something that I've recommended to many that I've coached is to get yourself some wooden pieces, small wooden pieces. Get yourself some wooden pieces small wooden pieces could be some beads or rocks and have them in a dish, a can whatever on your desk or some. If you wear pants and you have pockets even in, you start the day with all of them in one pocket, and what you're trying to get into the habit of doing is, when you take this action of being interested, you take a piece and you move it over. So if it's in the dish, you move it out of the dish, and every time you create the opportunity for this habit to be ingrained in who you are, you move it over. And so, for me, I'm a visual person, so, having these rocks, I actually used little tiles, wooden tiles that are the same size as the Scrabble tiles. This is the number of interactions I want to accomplish today, and so every time I have the interaction, I move a tile over, and if, at the end of the day, all the tiles are outside of the dish, it's been a successful day. You can choose whatever method you want, but you have to have something that is cuing you. That, hey, I said I wanted to change this. Here's my cue. Now I need to take action on that.

Speaker 1: 4:32

His next law is to make it attractive. So this is helping you crave doing this because of the positive feeling that you get with this habit. So that increases the motivation. And typically how that happens for you is you start to notice the positive reaction response from the people that you're interacting with. Positive reaction response from the people that you're interacting with. When you're interested in their life and you're asking them questions. They're instantly it's like wow, this person actually cares, this person sees me. What you get back is that dopamine hit Like okay, so this is good, they've responded in a positive way. So the more that you do that, the more comfortable you become and the more information that you're going to receive from them.

Speaker 1: 5:30

The next law is make it easy. That's why I love using these tiles, the rocks, something. Again, I'm visual, I'm a tactile person. Yes, I'm not an audible person. I want the book. I want to be able to hold it and feel it and touch it and all the rest of it. Like gardening, I've got to get my hands in the dirt. That's me. So, making it easy to start and maintain this particular habit building that you're doing and if that is easier for you, in an analog way, which is what these stones or these tiles represent, it's just a very basic bookkeeping of what's going on, if it's to have it in an app if it's to have your phone ping you an alert, you know, four times a day, five times a day, once a day. Whatever system works for you, that's what you have to set up, because if you make it complicated, your brain is adverse to pain. So don't make it complicated, because then your brain goes oh, what's the point? No, I'm not going to do that. You get all this pushback. You don't need the pushback, pushback, you don't need the pushback.

Speaker 1: 7:04

And then the fourth aspect is to make it satisfying, to reinforce with a sense of reward or accomplishment. And I tell you that is inherent every time you are interested or become curious in your employees' life. Think about yourself, right. You're the most important person to you, you're the most invested in you. So when you ask somebody about what's important to them or how they see the world, or what their vision is for their role in the company, do they have anything more? What are the things that are most important to them in this life that they're living? There is a very positive response that comes from it, and you start building relationships with the people that are on your team, the people that are inside your business, that you've never had before, and it's a good feeling.

Speaker 1: 8:15

We, as humans, we want to connect, we want to feel like we belong, and that goes both ways for you as the small business owner, and for them as the employee of the business. They want to feel like they're a part of it and that can happen when you demonstrate this interest and curiosity about them the human that is inside your building not just the human that's doing the tasks, but the full human that comes into your building. We all want a team that works really well together, and I have determined, after 35 plus years working with people, that the fastest way to do that and the most effective way to do that is to simply be interested in their life and to be curious about them. You're probably tired If you've been listening to my podcast. You've probably been tired of I keep hitting on this same thing, and I do because I believe it so strongly that it is the connection and the relationship and the moments that you have with each employee that are going to develop into how they see you, how they see your business, how they see their role and when they can feel good and safe and committed and excited about what they do. That's when the team and the culture is at its finest. So what I recommend this week to get implemented into the being interested and to Find a way that works for you to track each time you interact in an intentional way to build a relationship, to build connection, to help them feel that they belong, and then, every week, keep track. Each day, keep track and know that you are fulfilling your commitment to yourself, that you are going to be successful implementing this habit into your workplace.

Speaker 1: 10:53

That's it for this week. We'll talk to you again next week. Well, thanks for joining me today. Just a quick reminder if you were not on my email list, go to my website, rondadelaneycom, and there'sa place there that you can subscribe, keep you up to date on all things people, gardening and leadership, and also a reminder that the Raving Fans Society app is available on the Apple Store and the Google Store. I do have a free membership in there that you'll be able to access some of my material, and then there's also a paid membership, and right now it's $49 a month and you will receive access to all of my material, all of the teaching content, including a resource library that will really help you along, as well as group coaching every month and then quarterly bringing in guests that will talk on topics that pertain to small business owners and leadership. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you again next week.